Search

Abstract The synthesis of copper nanowires (CuNWs) using modified polyols with hexadecylamine or octadecylamine as capping agents, known for their ease of operation, rapid reaction, and suitability for mass production, often encounters challenges such as the presence of copper particles, numerous copper nanorods, difficulty in purifying organic compounds, and air instability as by-products. In addressing these issues, this study introduces an innovative multiphase ultrasonic-assisted separation method. By utilizing ultrasound to accelerate the dissolution of hexadecylamine and facilitate the separation movement of CuNWs and by-products in hydrophilic and hydrophobic phases, the aim of achieving high purification of CuNWs is realized. Through the introduction of an ultra-thin hexadecylamine layer (~ 3.5 nm) on the surface of CuNWs and leveraging the active adsorption of silver seed crystals, combined with the control CuNWs reaction concentration, silver-coated CuNWs with a dense and uniform surface thickness of 12–15 nm are obtained. By enhancing purity, stability, and cost-effectiveness, this research represents a significant advancement in the field of one-dimensional nanowires and their devices.

Abstract A substantive body of evidence has demonstrated the significant roles of circular RNA (circRNA) in cancer. However, the contribution of dysregulated circRNAs to ovarian cancer (OC) remains elusive. We aim to elucidate the critical roles and mechanisms of hsa_circ_0020093, which was demonstrated to be downregulated in OC tissues in our previous study. In this study, we confirmed the decreased expression of hsa_circ_0020093 in OC tissues and cell lines and demonstrated the negative correlation between its expression and FIGO stage, abdominal implantation and CA125 level of OC patients. Through gain and loss of function studies, we confirmed the inhibitory role of hsa_circ_0020093 in ovarian tumor growth in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, based on the peri-nuclear accumulation of hsa_circ_0020093, we discovered the interaction between hsa_circ_0020093 and the mitochondrial protein LRPPRC by RNA pull-down, mass spectrometry, RNA Binding Protein Immunoprecipitation. As a result, qRT-PCR and transmission electron microscopy results showed that the mitochondria mRNA expression and mitochondria abundance were decreased upon hsa_circ_0020093-overexpression. Meanwhile, we also unearthed the hsa_circ_0020093/miR-107/LATS2 axis in OC according to RNA-sequencing, RIP and luciferase reporter assay data. Furthermore, LRPPRC and LATS2 are both reported as the upstream regulators of YAP, our study also studied the crosstalk between hsa_circ_0020093, LRPPRC and miR-107/LATS2, and unearthed the up-regulation of phosphorylated YAP in hsa_circ_0020093-overexpressing OC cells and xenograft tumors. Collectively, our study indicated the novel mechanism of hsa_circ_0020093 in suppressing OC progression through both hsa_circ_0020093/LRPPRC and hsa_circ_0020093/miR-107/LATS2 axes, providing a potential therapeutic target for OC patients.

ObjectivesTo investigate the association between social and psychological factors and the risk of cognitive impairment following acute ischemic stroke.Materials and methodsA prospective study was conducted at Shanghai Tenth People’s Hospital from June 2021 to July 2022. The study focused on social and psychological factors, which were assessed using the Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS), Self-Perceived Burden Scale (SPBS), and Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD) within 3 days after admission to the hospital. Cognitive function was evaluated using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment at 3 months post-stroke. Logistic hierarchical regression models were used to examine the association between these three indicators and cognitive impairment following a stroke.ResultsAmong these patients, cognitive function was assessed in 211 cases at the 3-month follow-up after the initial stroke event. At 3 months post-stroke, 118(55.9%) of the participants experienced cognitive impairment, while 93(44.1%) did not. The scores on the SPBS and HAMD showed significant associations with cognitive impairment at 3 months after stroke. The scores of SPBS [scores: 30~39 vs.7 vs.≤7 points, OR=3.287(1.362~7.936); P=0.008]. There were no significant associations observed between SSRS and PSCI.ConclusionEarly screening for depressive symptoms and focusing on self-perceived burden can be beneficial for decision support for clinicians and improve cognitive function recovery at the 3-month mark post-stroke.

BackgroundPost-catheter removal sepsis (PCRS) is a notable complication of indwelling central venous catheters (CVCs) in neonates, which is postulated to be secondary to the disruption of biofilms formed along catheter tips up on CVCs removal. It remains controversial whether this could be prevented by antibiotic use upon CVCs removal. We aimed to evaluate the protective effect of antibiotic administration at the time of CVCs removal.MethodsWe searched through PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane databases and reference lists of review articles for studies comparing the use of antibiotics versus no use within 12 h of CVCs removal. Risk of bias was assessed using the modified Newcastle-Ottawa Scale and Cochrane risk-of-bias tool accordingly. Results of quantitative analyses were presented as mean differences (MD) or odds ratio (OR). Subgroup and univariate meta-regression analyses were performed to identify heterogeneity.ResultsThe review included 470 CVCs in the antibiotic group and 658 in the control group. Antibiotic use within 12 h of CVCs removal did not significantly reduce the incidence of PCRS (OR = 0.35, 95% CI: 0.08–1.53), but was associated with a lower incidence of post-catheter removal blood stream infection (OR = 0.31, 95% CI: 0.11–0.86). Dosage of vancomycin and world region were major sources of heterogeneity.ConclusionAntibiotic administration upon CVCs removal does not significantly reduce the incidence of PCRS but offers less post-catheter removal blood stream infection. Whether this will be converted to better clinical outcomes lacks evidential support. Further randomized controlled studies with longer follow-up are needed.SummaryResults of our meta-analysis suggest that antibiotic use at planned central line removal removal does not significantly reduce the incidence of PCRS but offers less blood stream infection, which might contribute to future management of central lines in neonates. Systematic Review Registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/, PROSPERO (CRD42022359677).

Abstract Analyses of several databases showed that the lncRNA RNF157 Antisense RNA 1 (RNF157-AS1) is overexpressed in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) tissues. In our study, suppressing RNF157-AS1 strikingly reduced the proliferation, invasion, and migration of EOC cells compared with control cells, while overexpressing RNF157-AS1 greatly increased these effects. By RNA pulldown assays, RNA binding protein immunoprecipitation (RIP) assays, and mass spectrometry, RNF157-AS1 was further found to be able to bind to the HMGA1 and EZH2 proteins. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays showed that RNF157-AS1 and HMGA1 bound to the ULK1 promoter and prevented the expression of ULK1. Additionally, RNF157-AS1 interacted with EZH2 to bind to the DIRAS3 promoter and diminish DIRAS3 expression. ULK1 and DIRAS3 were found to be essential for autophagy. Combination autophagy inhibitor and RNF157-AS1 overexpression or knockdown, a change in the LC3 II/I ratio was found using immunofluorescence (IF) staining and western blot (WB) analysis. The autophagy level also was confirmed by autophagy/cytotoxicity dual staining. However, the majority of advanced EOC patients require platinum-based chemotherapy, since autophagy is a cellular catabolic response to cell stress. As a result, RNF157-AS1 increased EOC cell sensitivity to chemotherapy and death under cis-platinum (DDP) treatment by suppressing autophagy, as confirmed by cell count Kit-8 (CCK8) assays, flow cytometry, and autophagy/cytotoxicity dual staining. Therefore, the OS and PPS times were longer in EOC patients with elevated RNF157-AS1 expression. RNF157-AS1-mediated autophagy has potential clinical significance in DDP chemotherapy for EOC patients.

Abstract Background The mortality rate of ovarian cancer ranks first among three common gynecological malignant tumors due to insidious onset and lack of effective early diagnosis methods. Borderline epithelial ovarian tumor (BEOT) is a type of low malignant potential tumor that is typically associated with better outcomes than ovarian cancer. However, BEOTs are easily confused with benign and malignant epithelial ovarian tumors (EOTs) due to similar clinical symptoms and lack of specific tumor biomarkers and imaging examinations. Notably, a small subset of BEOTs will transform into low-grade serous ovarian carcinoma with a poor prognosis. Therefore, searching for potential biomarkers that can be easily obtained and accurately identify malignant epithelial ovarian tumors (MEOTs) as well as BEOTs is essential for the clinician. Cancer antigen 125 (CA125) is a commonly used biomarker for the diagnosis of EOTs in the preoperative scenario but has low sensitivity and specificity. Nowadays, inflammatory biomarkers including inflammatory cell counts and derived ratios such as neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR) have been proved to be associated with tumor progression and poor prognosis, and were considered to be the most economically potential surrogate biomarkers for various malignancies. The purpose of this study was to find appropriate combinations of inflammatory and tumor biomarkers to improve the diagnostic efficiency of EOTs, especially the BEOTs. Results CA125, NLR and PLR increased steadily among benign, borderline and malignant EOTs and tended to be higher in advanced (stage III-IV) and lymph node metastasis MEOT groups than in early stage (stage I-II) and non-lymph node metastasis MEOT groups. CA125, NLR and PLR could be used separately in the differentiation of EOTs but could not take into account both sensitivity and specificity. The combined use of CA125, NLR and PLR was evaluated to be more efficient, especially in the identification of BEOTs, with both high sensitivity and high specificity. Conclusions The levels of CA125, NLR and PLR were closely related to the nature of EOTs and malignant progression of MEOTs. The combination of CA125, NLR and PLR was more accurate in identifying the nature of EOTs than either alone or double combination, especially for BEOTs.

ObjectivesHashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) is one of the most common autoimmune disorders; however, its underlying pathological mechanisms remain unclear. Although aberrant glycosylation has been implicated in the N-glycome of immunoglobulin G (IgG), changes in serum proteins have not been comprehensively characterized. This study aimed to investigate glycosylation profiles in serum samples depleted of highly abundant proteins from patients with HT and propose the potential functions of glycoproteins for further studies on the pathological mechanisms of HT.MethodsA lectin microarray containing 70 lectins was used to detect and analyze glycosylation of serum proteins using serum samples (N=27 HT; N=26 healthy control [HC]) depleted of abundant proteins. Significant differences in glycosylation status between HT patients and the HC group were verified using lectin blot analysis. A lectin-based pull-down assay combined with mass spectrometry was used to investigate potential glycoproteins combined with differentially present lectins, and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to identify the expression of targeted glycoproteins in 131 patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), 131 patients with benign thyroid nodules (BTN) patients, 130 patients with HT, and 128 HCs.ResultsCompared with the HC group, the majority of the lectin binding signals in HT group were weakened, while the Vicia villosa agglutinin (VVA) binding signal was increased. The difference in VVA binding signals verified by lectin blotting was consistent with the results of the lectin microarray. A total of 113 potential VVA-binding glycoproteins were identified by mass spectrometry and classified by gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) analyses. Using ELISA, we confirmed that lactoferrin (LTF) and mannan-binding lectin-associated serine protease 1 (MASP-1) levels were elevated in the serum of patients with HT and PTC.ConclusionFollowing depletion of abundant proteins, remaining serum proteins in HT patients exhibited lower glycosylation levels than those observed in HCs. An increased level of potential VVA-binding glycoproteins may play an important role in HT development. LTF and MASP-1 expression was significantly higher in the serum of HT and PTC patients, providing novel insight into HT and PTC.

Abstract Introduction Hepatoblastoma is a rare but devastating pediatric liver malignancy. Overexpressed methyltransferase-like 1 (METTL1) is a methyltransferase that catalyzes essential N7-methylguanosine (m7G) modification of eukaryotic mRNA. Accumulating evidence has revealed the oncogenic potential of METTL1. However, whether METTL1 gene polymorphisms confer susceptibility to hepatoblastoma has not been reported. This study aimed to identify causal relationships between genetic variants of this gene and susceptibility to hepatoblastoma. Materials and methods Using the TaqMan assay, we genotyped three METTL1 polymorphisms (rs2291617 G > T, rs10877013 T > C, rs10877012 T > G) in germline DNA samples from 1759 Chinese children of Han ethnicity (313 cases vs. 1446 controls). Results None of these polymorphisms were associated with hepatoblastoma risk. However, combination analysis showed that children with 1 to 3 risk genotypes were associated with increased hepatoblastoma risk (adjusted odds ratio = 1.47, 95% confidence interval 1.07–2.02; P = 0.018). Stratified analyses revealed significant effects of combined polymorphisms mainly among young children (

Metasurfaces open up unprecedented potential for applications in acoustic deflection. Achieving adaptive control of a scattered sound field (SSF) using a flexible metasurface structure is of great scientific interest. However, as the conventional finite element method (FEM) is limited by computational efficiency, it is necessary to develop a fast and accurate method to predict the SSF. In this work, we design a chessboard device with an array of square grooves for the modulation of SSF and develop a fast calculation method for 3D SSF using a Kirchhoff approximation phase correction. Several SSF spatial modulations obtained using the chessboard model are computed with a fast algorithm. In addition, an experimental test-case in a semi-anechoic chamber, contrasted and analyzed scattered acoustic pressure using FEM, is designed to regulate the SSF performance of the chessboard device. Field measurements obtained show that the spatial directivity of chessboard device can be modified by artificially programming the phase or depth distribution of the groove array. The chessboard device and associated fast calculation method lend themselves to applications in the acoustic stealth of targets in air or water.

Abstract Background Circular RNA (circRNA), a class of RNA with a covalent closed circular structure that widely existed in serum and plasma, has been considered an ideal liquid biopsy marker in many diseases. In this study, we employed microarray and qRT-PCR to evaluate the potential circulating circRNAs with diagnostic efficacy in ovarian cancer. Methods We used microarray to explore the circRNA expression profile in ovarian cancer patients’ plasma and quantitative real-time (qRT)-PCR approach to assessing the candidate circRNA’s expression. Then the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was employed to analyze the diagnostic values of candidate circRNAs. The diagnostic model circCOMBO was a combination of hsa_circ_0003972 and hsa_circ_0007288 built by binary logistic regression. Then bioinformatic tools were used to predict their potential mechanisms. Results Hsa_circ_0003972 and hsa_circ_0007288 were downregulated in ovarian cancer patients’ plasma, tissues, and cell lines, comparing with the controls. Hsa_circ_0003972 and hsa_circ_0007288 exhibited diagnostic values with the Area Under Curve (AUC) of 0.724 and 0.790, respectively. circCOMBO showed a better diagnostic utility (AUC: 0.781), while the combination of circCOMBO and carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125) showed the highest diagnostic value (AUC: 0.923). Furthermore, the higher expression level of hsa_circ_0007288 in both plasma and ovarian cancer tissues was associated with lower lymph node metastasis potential in ovarian cancer. Conclusions Our results revealed that hsa_circ_0003972 and hsa_circ_0007288 may serve as novel circulating biomarkers for ovarian cancer diagnosis.

ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to assess the impact of short-term, hospital-based, supervised multimodal prehabilitation on elderly patients with colorectal cancer.MethodsA single-center, retrospective study was conducted from October 2020 to December 2021, which included a total of 587 CRC patients who were scheduled to undergo radical resection. A propensity score-matching analysis was performed to reduce selection bias. All patients were treated within a standardized enhanced recovery pathway, and patients in the prehabilitation group received an additional supervised, short-term multimodal preoperative prehabilitation intervention. Short-term outcomes were compared between the two groups.ResultsAmong the participants, 62 patients were excluded; 95 participants were included in the prehabilitation group and 430 in the non-prehabilitation group. After PSM analysis, 95 pairs of well-matched patients were included in the comparative study. Participants in the prehabilitation group had better preoperative functional capacity (402.78 m vs. 390.09 m, P

Abstract Several circRNAs have been reported to be dysregulated in human endothelial cells through sponging miRNAs. Previous reports demonstrated that MPO not only contributed to the formation and rupture of cerebral aneurysm but was also correlated with the degenerative remodeling predisposition to saccular intracranial aneurysm wall rupture, although its underlying mechanisms remain to be explored. Microarray screening was performed to compare the differential expression of circRNAs in the endothelial cells collected from UIAs and RIAs patients. Luciferase assays were used to explore the regulatory relationship between circRNAs and miRNAs, and between miRNAs and their target genes. Microarray screening analysis found a batch of up-regulated circRNAs in the endothelial cells harvested from RIAs patients, including circRNA-0079586 and circRNA-RanGAP1. Luciferase assays revealed the suppressive role of miR-183-5p/miR-877-3p in the expression of circRNA-0079586/circRNA-RanGAP1/MPO. And the expression of circRNA-0079586 and circRNA-RanGAP1 was respectively suppressed by the overexpression of miR-183-5p and miR-877-3p. And both the transfection of miR-183-5p and miR-877-3p mimics suppressed the relative expression level of MPO mRNA. The expression of circRNA-0079586, circRNA-RanGAP1 and MPO was significantly activated in the endothelial cells collected from RIAs patients when compared with UIAs patients, whereas the expression of miR-183-5p and miR-877-3p was remarkably suppressed in the endothelial cells collected from RIAs patients when compared with UIAs patients. We further altered the expression of circRNA-0079586 and circRNA-RanGAP1 using siRNA and overexpression in HUVECS, and the expression of circRNA-0079586 and circRNA-RanGAP1 was significantly and negatively correlated with the expression of miR-183-5p and miR-877-3p, but positively correlated with the expression of MPO under different conditions. In this study, we established two MPO-modulating signaling pathways of circRNA_0079586/miR-183-5p/MPO and circRNA_RanGAP1/miR-877-3p/MPO. These two signaling pathways are involved in the pathogenesis of intracranial aneurysms rupture.

Recently, increasing evidence has displayed that lncRNAs can exhibit crucial function in cancer progression, including lung cancer. LncRNA bladder cancer-associated transcript 1 (BLACAT1) is reported to participate in various cancers. The aim of our current study was to investigate the function of BLACAT1 in non-small cell lung cancer progression and study the functional pathway. Here, we reported BLACAT1 was significantly up-regulated in lung cancer tissues in comparison to the adjacent normal tissues, which suggested BLACAT1 might act as an oncogene in lung cancer. Then, A549 and PC9 cells were infected with BLACAT1 overexpression plasmid and shRNA. As shown, we proved up-regulation of BLACAT1 greatly induced the growth of non-small cell lung cancer cells. Reversely, knockdown of BLACAT1 reduced A549 and PC9 cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Sonic hedgehog (shh) signaling is able to exert a significant role in carcinogenesis, including lung cancer. Currently, we proved that up-regulation of BLACAT1 activated shh signaling pathway, via inducing shh, Gli-1 and Smo expression. shh pathway inhibitor GANT-61 reversed the effect of overexpression of BLACAT1 on non-small cell lung cancer. Moreover, we manifested that loss of BLACAT1 remarkably reduced the in vivo growth and metastasis of A549 cells via enhancing infiltrating CD3+ T cells. In conclusion, our research revealed a critical role of BLACAT1 in the modulation of non-small cell lung cancer via modulating shh pathway.

Previous evidence suggests that long non-coding colon cancer-associated transcript-1(CCAT1) plays a pivotal role in the progression of a variety of tumors. However, little is known about its role in lung adenocarcinoma (LAD). In this study, we found LAD tissue samples had a higher expression of CCAT1 but a lower expression of miR-219-1 compared to their adjacent non-tumor tissues. CCAT1 negatively regulated the expression of miR-219-1. miR-219-1 suppressed the proliferation of A549 and H1299 cells. Knockdown of CCAT1 inhibited the proliferation, migration, and invasion of A549 and H1299 cells, which were reversed by the miR-219-1 inhibitor. CCAT1 knockdown increased the expression of E-cadherin but decreased the expressions of N-cadherin and vimentin, which were restored by the miR-219-1 inhibitor. In vivo, knockdown of CCAT1 suppressed the tumor growth of LAD xenografts, which were rescued by the inhibition of miR-219-1. In summary, our findings suggested that CCAT1 promotes the progression of LAD via sponging miR-219-1, providing a potential therapeutic target for LAD.

Purpose: To establish an efficient new risk index for screening patients with endometrial cancer from patients with abnormal vaginal bleeding or discharge. Method: A total of 254 patients with abnormal vaginal bleeding or discharge were included in this study. Several candidate markers, including HE4, CA125, CA199, CA153, AFP, CEA, d -dimer, and fibrinogen, were employed. A new risk index for endometrial cancer screening was established by binary logistic regression. The diagnostic value of the candidate markers and the new risk index were assessed by a receiver operating characteristic curve, sensitivity, and specificity. Results: The most valuable diagnostic indicator for endometrial cancer was HE4, followed by d -dimer and then fibrinogen (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve: HE4 = 0.794, d -dimer = 0.717, fibrinogen = 0.690). The new risk index was superior to a single application of markers and a widely used combination (HE4 and CA125). At the ideal cutoff level, the sensitivity and specificity were 91.34% and 70.08%, respectively. In addition, only patients without organic disease served as controls, which further increase its performance (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve = 0.932, sensitivity = 94.49%, and specificity = 77.42%). Conclusions: The new risk index combining HE4, d -dimer, fibrinogen, and CA199 was the ideal combination for the screening of endometrial cancer. As a simple, rapid, nondestructive detection method, the new risk index is worth promotion in clinical practice, especially in primary medical institutions.

We performed the current study to explore potential predictive value of serum Tumor Necrosis Factor- (TNF-) like weak inducer of apoptosis (TWEAK) concentrations for 28-day mortality in patients with sepsis. Adult septic patients (age≥18 years) admitted to a general ICU between November 2016 and October 2017 were consecutively included in our prospective observational study. TWEAK concentrations were detected in septic patients and healthy controls. Dynamic changes of TWEAK concentrations between 1st day and 3rd day of admission to ICU (ΔTWEAK concentrations) were also measured. A total of 79 septic patients were included and 19 of them (24.1%) died after a follow-up period of 28 days. We identified arterial lactate, NT-proBNP, and male gender as independent factors for 28-day mortality of patients with sepsis. The serum levels of TWEAK were significantly lower in septic patients compared to controls (417.4 ± 196.7 pg/ml versus 1243.8 ± 174.3 pg/ml, p

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an immensely challenging developmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, restricted/repetitive behavior, and anxiety. GABAergic dysfunction has been postulated to underlie these autistic symptoms. Gastrodin is widely used clinically in the treatment of neurological disorders and showed to modulate GABAergic signaling in the animal brain. The present study aimed to determine whether treatment with gastrodin can rescue valproic acid (VPA) induced autistic-like phenotypes, and to determine its possible mechanism of action. Our results showed that administration of gastrodin effectively alleviated the autistic-associated behavioral abnormalities as reflected by an increase in social interaction and decrement in repetitive/stereotyped behavior and anxiety in mice as compared to those in untreated animals. Remarkably, the amelioration in autistic-like phenotypes was accompanied by the restoration of inhibitory synaptic transmission, α5 GABAA receptor, and type 1 GABA transporter (GAT1) expression in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) of VPA-treated mice. These findings indicate that gastrodin may alleviate the autistic symptoms caused by VPA through regulating GABAergic synaptic transmission, suggesting that gastrodin may be a potential therapeutic target in autism.

Changes in the activity levels of the antioxidant enzymes superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD), and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) in the leaves of Lonicera caerulea, a perennial deciduous shrub, were measured along an altitude gradient (800-1800 m) on the northern slope of Changbai Mountain, China. Enzyme activity levels were statistically analyzed with respect to various environmental factors'including soil and climate parameters' to explore the physiological and biochemical mechanisms underlying the adaptation of this shrub to mountainous habitats. From 800 m to 1000 m, POD activity decreased significantly (to 712 U/g·min), then increased significantly to peak at 1600 m (4190 U/g·min), followed by a decrease at 1800 m. The CAT activity increased significantly from 800 m to peak at 1600 m (274 U/g·min), followed by a decrease at 1800 m. SOD activity increased steadily from 800 m to 1800 m. From 800 m to 1000 m, APX activity decreased significantly (to 5201 U/g·min), then increased significantly to peak at 1600 m (14771 U/g·min), followed by a decrease at 1800 m. Multiple regression analysis showed that CAT activity was mainly affected by the number of days with snow cover, soil available P, and soil total P. SOD activity was mainly affected by precipitation from June to September and soil total P. APX activity was mainly affected by soil available P. Correlations between leaf traits and environment indicated that all four enzymes were sensitive to environmental changes, and that enzyme activity levels adjusted to the environment as the elevation changed. The results here showed, antioxidant enzyme activity levels in the leaves of L. caerulea on the northern slope of Changbai Mountain were lower at low altitudes (800-1200 m) and higher at moderate altitudes (1200-1600 m), suggesting that these altitudes are the most conducive to the stable growth of. L. caerulea has high edible and medicinal value, and this plant grows well throughout its wide distribution in the Changbai Mountain area. Therefore, the results of this study suggested that the planting area of L. caerulea can be extended to these altitudes. In addition, these findings provide a basis for improvements of L. caerulea fruit yield and quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Convolutional neural network (CNN) pruning is a technique used to remove redundant parameters from the network. By doing so, it aims to greatly reduce the computational complexity and scale of the network while still preserving its accuracy. In the CNN, the majority of parameters are weights that form filters. When it comes to pruning, it is more effective to focus on removing redundant filters rather than insignificant weights within filters. The essence of filter pruning lies in determining the significance or contribution of each filter. Filters that have a significant contribution are kept, while others are pruned. Current methods for calculating contribution in pruning often rely on weight magnitude or filter similarity. However, approaches based solely on assume that small weights are unimportant and ignore correlation between filters, which leads to a significant loss of network accuracy. Those based on filter similarity flatten filter tensors into a vector when calculating filter similarity, and lose the important structural information of filters, or the superposition information of the weight convolution in the corresponding space position. These limitations can compromise the accuracy and effectiveness of the pruning process. This paper proposes an adaptive CNN pruning method based on the structural similarity of filters (APSSF) by taking both the structural characteristics of and the correlation between filters into the consideration for pruning filters. APSSF efficiently calculates the distance between the filters by factoring in information from all the dimensions of filters, and clusters the filters according to the distance threshold determined adaptively according to the compression rate, and deletes a certain number of filters from each category. On the CIFAR10 and ImageNet datasets, APSSF outperforms several state-of-the-art methods. On the CIFAR100, APSSF reduces parameters of networks by 91.71% and 74.80% on VGG-16 and ResNet-34, respectively. The accuracy was decreased only by 0.03 on VGG-16, while on ResNet-34, it was increased by 0.04.

Abstract As an alternative to antibiotics in response to antimicrobial-resistant infections, bacteriophages (phages) are garnering renewed interest in recent years. However, the massive preparation of phage is restricted using traditional pathogens as host cells, which incurs additional costs and contamination. In this study, an opportunistic pathogen, Klebsiella pneumoniae used to convert glycerol to 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PDO), was reused to prepare phage after fermentation. The phage infection showed that the fed-batch fermentation broth containing 71.6 g/L 1,3-PDO can be directly used for preparation of phage with a titer of 1 × 108 pfu/mL. Then, the two-step salting-out extraction was adopted to remove most impurities, e.g. acetic acid (93.5%), ethanol (91.5%) and cells (99.4%) at the first step, and obtain 1,3-PDO (56.6%) in the top phase as well as phage (97.4%) in the middle phase at the second step. This integrated process provides a cheap and environment-friendly manner for coproduction of 1,3-PDO and phage. Graphical abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the impact of short-term, hospitalbased, supervised multimodal prehabilitation on elderly patients with colorectal cancer. Methods: A single-center, retrospective study was conducted from October 2020 to December 2021, which included a total of 587 CRC patients who were scheduled to undergo radical resection. A propensity score-matching analysis was performed to reduce selection bias. All patients were treated within a standardized enhanced recovery pathway, and patients in the prehabilitation group received an additional supervised, short-term multimodal preoperative prehabilitation intervention. Short-term outcomes were compared between the two groups. Results: Among the participants, 62 patients were excluded; 95 participants were included in the prehabilitation group and 430 in the non-prehabilitation group. After PSM analysis, 95 pairs of well-matched patients were included in the comparative study. Participants in the prehabilitation group had better preoperative functional capacity (402.78 m vs. 390.09 m, P<0.001), preoperative anxiety status (9% vs. 28%, P<0.001), time to first ambulation[25.0 (8.0) hours vs. 28.0(12.4) hours, P=0.008], time to first flatus [39.0(22.0) hours vs. 47.7(34.0) hours, P=0.006], duration of the postoperative length of hospital stay [8.0(3.0) days vs. 10.0(5.0) days, P=0.007), and quality of life in terms of psychological dimensions at 1 month postoperatively [53.0(8.0) vs. 49.0(5.0), P<0.001]. Conclusion: The short-term, hospital-based, supervised multimodal prehabilitation is feasible with a high degree of compliance in older CRC patients, which improves their short-term clinical outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]